Tag: Buffer

Best of the Blogs: the best posts of the week on writing, editing, publishing, and marketing.

Writing

Point of View

One of my personal bugbears when reading (and editing) is novels which headhop. In this excellent post, Most Common Writing Mistakes: Head-Hopping POV KM Weiland explains why headhopping is a bad idea … and how it’s often a symptom of a bigger problem:

it’s also a sign the entire narrative—all the way down to the structural foundation of the plot—lacks focus.

Publishing

Kristine Kathryn Rusch discusses Rip Van Winkle Syndrome among writers—a summary of how the business of publishing has changed in the last decade. Anyone who hasn’t kept up might feel like Rip Van Winkle did after waking from his twenty-year sleep.

Marketing

Cover Design

Emilie Hendryx visits Novel Rocket to share 3 Ways Your Cover Sells Your Novel. I have to agree: people do judge books by their cover. There is a new release I keep seeing promoted on blogs and social media. I know from the title and blurb it’s supposed to be historical fiction with a romantic element. Maybe I’m the only one, but the cover image reminds me of Cruella de Vil … not my idea of a romantic heroine. No, I’m not going to share the name or author.

Amazon Ads

David Gaughran shares 9 Ways to Improve AMS – Amazon Ads for Authors. It’s a combination of instruction on how to use Amazon ads, and how Amazon could make their advertising more user-friendly i.e. encourage advertisers to spend more money by providing clearer information on how to get a positive ROI.

I don’t have any books for sale on Amazon, so my experience of Amazon ads is solely as a potential Kindle book buyer. Almost all the books I check out are Christian fiction, so I’d expect the advertised books to be Christian fiction—or at the most edgy, fiction written by Christian authors for the general market. But that’s not the case, and I guess we can thank EL James and Christian Grey for that. I wonder if these authors realise they are wasting their time and money?

What’s the best blog post you’ve read this week?

What Is Buffer?

Buffer (www.Buffer.com) is one of many programmes that allows users to manage their social media posting. Other popular options include Hootsuite and MeetEdgar. I like and recommend Buffer because I think it has a better user interface than Hootsuite, and it’s not as expensive as MeetEdgar.

Buffer Plans

Buffer’s free plan allows users to post to:

Twitter

Facebook

LinkedIn

Google+

Instagram

The free plan allows up to five accounts—one from each network—and allows you to share up to 10 posts per network. This could mean one post a day for ten days, or ten posts every day (although then you’ll have to reload your Buffer each day. If you’re sharing this often, you might benefit from a paid plan).

The Awesome Plan

I subscribe to Buffer’s Awesome plan, which costs USD 10 per month and is awesome (Buffer don’t have an affiliate scheme, so I’m not being paid for saying that). The Awesome plan gives subscribers access to 10 social accounts across six social networks—the five networks available on the free plan, plus Pinterest.

The Awesome plan allows users to queue up to 100 posts in each social media buffer (so that’s 1,000 posts in all). They’ve obviously changed the rules a little, because my personal limit is 12 accounts, and if there is a limit on the number of posts per social media account, I haven’t found it yet. Moral of the story: subscribe early, to get the maximum benefit for the minimum cost.

The Awesome plan is designed for individuals—there are also a range of business plans starting at USD 99 per month (with a 50% discount for registered not-for-profit organisations). For more information on these plans, see their Pricing page.

How do I use Buffer?

Buffer is one of the tools I use to enable me to post to social media when I’m not actually on social media. I use a tool called Freedom to lock me out of social media for most of the working day. Buffer posts during the day instead of me, posting content I’ve added ahead of time. There are two types of content I share through Buffer:

My own content (e.g. blog posts)

Curated content (quality blog posts from other people)

Curated Content

I subscribe to more blogs than I care to admit through Feedly. Each weekday, I scan my Feedly feed and check out the titles of all the posts that have come through. I’ll read those which interest me, and pick a few to share. (This is why it’s important to have a catchy blog post title.)

But I don’t want to clog my social media feeds by sharing everything at once. Instead, I click on the downloadable Buffer extension. From here, I can choose which of my linked social media accounts I want to share to, and can write an individual message for each network.

I can write different messages for different social networks.

This is important when it comes to post length and hashtags. Twitter limits posts to 140 characters, while the limit (!) on Facebook is 63,206 characters. Two hashtags are ideal on Twitter. Instagram allows up to thirty, and Facebook … well, Facebook allows hashtags but they haven’t really caught on. #AndMostPeopleDontKnowHowToUseThemAnyway

However, if I share to a Facebook profile, a page, and a group, each one will show the same message. I can share the same post to two different Facebook pages with two different messages, but I’d have to share the post twice—first to one page, then to the other. This isn’t hard—it takes about 30 seconds per post.

If the post is time-sensitive (e.g. a book giveaway), then I’ll ask Buffer to “Share Next”. This means my queue is rearranged so this is the next post shared on each network. Otherwise I’ll “Add to Buffer”, which means the post is added to the end of my queue, and will be shared at different times to different social networks depending on what other posts are in my queue.

My Own Content

I use Buffer to share my own blog posts to my social media profiles. With my own content, I usually elect to “Share Next”.

I also use the Power Scheduler to share my own content over time.

What is Power Scheduler?

The premise of the Power Scheduler is related to a time management principle: Don’t Trust Your Future Self

Your future self won’t remember to promote your old blog posts on a regular basis, but you can act now and set the Power Scheduler do it for you.

When I have a new blog post that isn’t time sensitive, I use the Power Scheduler to set that post up to Tweet regularly over the next year. I could also use PowerScheduler to repost to Facebook or Pinterest—and I probably should.

Note that Twitter doesn’t allow you to share exactly the same Tweet too often, so Buffer will sometimes reject posts to Power Scheduler. I’ve found the easiest way to get around this is to write two slightly different Tweets for the same post, perhaps with different hashtags as well. I then share alternate between the two Tweets.

I share each post eight times through Buffer: today, then in 7, 15, 30, 61, 90, 180, and 360 days. That means I cover each day of the week. This takes about two minutes each day, and ensures my posts are scheduled regularly over the next year.

You can achieve a similar result through a WordPress Tweet Old Posts plugin, or using another app, MissingLettr. I’ve tried both, and found Buffer’s Power Scheduler is quicker and easier to use than MissingLettr, and easier to customise than a plugin.

What about reposting in perpetuity, not just for a year? I use Social Jukebox for that, and I’ll talk about that next week.

Being Social on Social Media

Using Buffer means that when I visit a social media network, I’m visiting to check notifications, respond to comments, thank people for mentions, and generally interact. I’m not there looking for something shareable—I’ve done that already, and I know my social media tools will deliver that for me.

Instead, I can use social media for the purpose for which it was originally intended—to be social.

Do you use Buffer or other social sharing software? Do you have any tips or tricks to share?

This post is part of the #AuthorToolBoxBlogHop, the brainchild of Raimey Gallant. There are over thirty authors participating in the blog hop this month, each sharing on a topic related to writing, publishing or marketing. There are three great ways to follow the blog hop:

So … on to my 9 favourite book marketing websites.

I’m not yet published. Well, not in a book sense. I’ve got thousands of words published online in the form of hundreds of book reviews and blog posts–my book review blog will hit 1,000 posts in a couple of months, and at least 80% of those posts are reviews.

Even though I’m not yet published, I’ve been studying the art and science of writing, editing, publishing, and marketing for several years. If there’s one thing I’ve learned on the road to publication, it’s this:

Marketing starts a long time before you publish.

Which means everyone who wants to publish should have at least a passing awareness of current marketing trends. And there is a lot of marketing advice out there—some excellent, some good, and some downright misleading.

(I think the worst was the one which advised readers to add everyone they knew to their “opt-in email list”. Had she heard of the CAN-SPAM Act? Did she understand the meaning of the words, “opt in”? I can only assume not.)

Anyway, today I’m sharing the nine websites I find most useful when it comes to identifying book marketing trends.

1. BookBub

BookBub is the gorilla in the room of book marketing. They charge authors hundreds of dollars to advertise in one of their genre-specific daily emails, and turn down more potential advertisers than they accept. I’ve only heard of one author who didn’t make her money back on a BookBub ad (the book was middle grade fiction, so it doesn’t altogether surprise me. My kids are on their devices 24/7, but still prefer paper books).

But the power of BookBub’s featured advertisements isn’t why they are on my list. BookBub analyses their sales and other data to provide detailed articles on what sells, and what doesn’t. And that’s worth reading.

Chris Syme

Chris Syme is the owner of Smart Marketing for Authors, and the author of Sell More Books With Less Social Media, and the soon-to-be-published Sell More Books With Less Marketing. She also co-hosts a book marketing podcast with her daughter, bestselling romance author Becca Syme.
Reading Sell More Books with Less Social Media was a lightbulb moment for me, one of those times when someone says something that seems obvious, yet I’d never seen it before:

Not all authors are at the same level when it comes to writing and publishing, and our marketing needs to take that into account.

Dan Blank

Dan Blank is the owner of WeGrow Media, who help authors connect with readers. He has recently published Be The Gateway, where he shows authors how to research and understand their target audience, then work out how best to connect with those people. It’s about playing the long game in an industry where many people are looking for quick wins.
I like Dan’s philosophy of marketing—it’s similar to Tim Grahl, and is one I can embrace as someone who hates asking for the sale (something I’m working on). I enjoy reading his blog posts and newsletters—like his recent post reinforcing the importance of word-of-mouth marketing.

David Gaughran

David Gaughran is the author of Let’s Get Digital (why authors should consider digital self-publishing), and Let’s Get Visible. He was the first author to show me the importance of understanding and using Amazon algorithms to drive sales. The books are a few years old (and I read them both as new releases), so the information may have dated a little.

The other reason I like and follow David is because of his personal war against the vanity publishing, and the valuable information he provides on their various schemes. You might not think so, but this is marketing as well: it’s part of Product, one of the four Ps of marketing strategy.

Joel Friedlander

Joel Friedlander is The Book Designer. He hosts the monthly Cover Design Awards, where he critiques author-submitted covers. He also hosts a monthly Carnival of the Indies, a round-up of what’s new in indie publishing (and writing, and marketing). He also attracts guest posts from some of the top names in digital publishing.

Rachel Thompson

She’s also the author of The 30-Day Book Marketing Challenge, which was the inspiration behind my own KickStart Your Author Platform challenge. Rachel doesn’t pull her punches, and brings twenty-plus years of pharmaceutical sales experience to her marketing advice.

Seth Godin

Seth Godin invented the idea of permission-based marketing, that we should work to grow a tribe of people who support us and our work. He posts a short blog post each day, and all are worth reading.

The Buffer Blog

I love Buffer. I loved their free version, and I love the Awesome plan even more. Buffer enables me to manage my social media sharing without going mad. Hootsuite has similar functionality, but I find the Buffer interface much more user friendly.

But that’s not the reason Buffer is on this list. They’re on my list because of their blog. They share millions of social media posts, and collect information on the performance of those posts. That enables them to write meaty blog posts that answer a lot of social media questions: when is the best time to post? How many times a day should you post? Do you need to use hashtags? Images? Which social media networks perform best?

Buffer knows, and Buffer tells us.

Tim Grahl

Tim is the owner of Outthink Group. He is the author of Your First 1,000 Copies (which preaches the importance of building an email list and using those connections to market your book), and The Book Launch Blueprint (which reinforces the importance of building an email list, and using those connections to launch your book).
He’s not about sell-sell-sell. He’s about building meaningful connections, about getting permission to contact people (through the email list), delivering relevant content, and outreaching from there.

It’s been several years since I read Your First 1,000 Copies. I’ve recently realised that while I’m doing Permission and Content reasonably well, I need to work on Outreach.

My roundup of the best blog posts in the week ending 10 February, on writing, reading, publishing and marketing.

Writing

Free Writing Books

In case you hadn’t heard yet, I’m one of 18 writers involved in this Instafreebie promotion. Click here to find free non-fiction books on writing, publishing and marketing. But get in quick, because the promotion ends on Sunday 12 February.

What do Readers (and Authors) Want?

Publishing

Self-Publishing Tips

Pam McCutcheon visits Funds for Writers to ask: Should I Hire Someone to Upload by eBook or Do it Myself? I thought DIY was a no-brainer, but Pam points out as a PC user and non-US resident, I can’t upload to Apple or Nook myself. Paying someone like Pam to do it for me would mean I didn’t have to share my royalties with a distributor like Draft2Digital or Smashwords.

Marketing

Social Media

Do you use a social media scheduling app? The two main choices are Hootsuite and Buffer, and this post by Meenakshi Krishnan from Jeff Bullas’s blog takes you through the pros and cons of each.

I use Buffer, because I find the interface easier to use. While the analytics might not be as good as Hootsuite, they are more than sufficient for my needs. And Buffer supports Pinterest, which Hootsuite doesn’t.

Blog Posts

Pages

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